His summers were spent in Seal Harbor, Maine playing tennis, hiking and sailing—activities he avidly pursued throughout his life.
His studies were interrupted in by World War I in 1918, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Service and received a commission as 2nd Lieutenant in May 1919.
[5] During World War II, Angell served in the United States Army Air Forces, as a captain from 1942 to 1943, a major from 1943 to 1944, and a Lieutenant Colonel from 1944 to 1945, earning a Bronze Star Medal in 1944.
[1] He served abroad as director of UNESCO's Social Science Department in Paris from 1949 to1950, heading up a project on world tensions.
[1] As a result of this work, Angell was instrumental in founding the International Sociological Association and served as the organization's second president from 1953 to 1956.
[1] Angell served as director of the University of Michigan Honors Council, initiating a new four-year program for gifted students in the Literary College from 1957 to 1960, and as director of the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution (1959), and the Journal of Conflict Resolution (1957), both of which he also helped found.
In December 1922, Angell married Esther Kennedy, University of Michigan class of 1922.